Dave Bitran - A little Somethin' Somethin' About Me!

Ha, sounds how I would slate my voice over auditions.

Never great at this but “hear”goes…🤪

Dave Bitran here. AKA "Btrain" because most people jacked up my last name so badly that Btrain was what came out of their mouths. Btrainsvoice is my handle because I did Radio and TV voice overs for over 20+ years so naturally, as a voice over actor, you kinda use your voice and so viola, Btrainsvoice was born.

Born in Montreal Canada in ’66 to a mom from Morocco and a dad from Turkey. Huge family from the “old countries” moved to be with us. My aunts/uncles/cousins and their friends. I was raised with those same “old country” rules. Family was always first. Family get togethers were the best. Every week, at the very least, we’d all be together. Conversations in multiple languages. Hectic and frantic BUT always in a loving way. Even changing languages in mid sentence, lol! One of our family friends nicknamed us “La famille royale” 👑. We did everything big and very loud..Always centered around food and eating. It was awesome.

After the Olympics in ’76, my pops decided to move my mom, sister and me to go to Los Angeles CA. I was 11 years old when we go to LA. Leaving my aunts/uncles/cousins and their friends and all my friends behind. Pops always had a dream to move to “Hollywood.” So we did. Worked with my pops in the restaurant he purchased in downtown. Slave laborer, lol! Fired my first employee, Dotty, at age 11, ‘77/78. My pops hired her back the same day.

As the runt of the family, I grew up only speaking 4 languages as the rest of my family spoke 6. Grew up in a household where mom and dad barely spoke to each other. It sucked. They fought all the time and when they didn’t fight, they wouldn’t talk to each other. I was yelled at a lot by pops. That sucked. I cried a lot. That was the worst.

So grateful for having an amazing sister that was 7.5 years older than me and the most loving mom that quietly taught me how to be good, kind, respectful and family man. Great relationship with my mom, horrible relationship with pops.

With all the different accents I would hear everyday growing up, I developed a knack for mimicking friends and family with accents and voices without having an accent myself, lol!

Cool trick party trick. Always was a jokester and found out making people laugh was easy and a great way to make friends and meet girls. Used my imitation skills to mimic showbiz peeps too.

Great athlete, for a white Jewish kid from the Valley, that is! 😁Played Varsity baseball, basketball and football in high school. Was pretty successful with the opposite sex. Sometimes too successful. Made some solid childhood friends. To this day, I’m friends with, at least 20 of them today.

Grew up working in the food industry. In ’81 thru ‘87, I worked my way up from dishwasher to general manager of a very popular Italian restaurant in the valley. I ended up managing all three of his restaurants. Still worked in my pops new deli too.

Started community college after high school graduation in ‘85. Had to quit college after a year and a half to help the family business get back on it’s feet. Worked 2 jobs besides the family deli.

Once I started working extra full time, I decided not to go back to college. However, my sister finally convinced me to finish college. Worked 2 jobs, paid for my own tuition and wrote my college papers at the restaurant after long shifts on table #1.

Finished community college and transferred to CSUN. Bought a house at 24. Met my now wife of 28+ years at CSUN in RTVF 340 class. Instant connection. Graduated college in ‘90/’91. Brokenhearted in ’93 when mom passed away from brain cancer. Promised my mom that I’d take care of my pops, even tho we had a rough relationship. Opened my own Catering business in ’93. Married my love in ‘96. Sold my catering business in ‘97/’98. Finally out of the food business after almost 20 years.

Started to take voice overs more seriously. Began working on the steps to get in the voice over acting business. ‘98/’99, became an inventor. Sold options for our product. Made some money. Sadly, horrible dispute with former partner. Split and moved on. Turns out that experience has been harder to overcome than others!!

Voice over career started to take shape. Booked first Network National Commercial in ‘99.

(A very big deal in the industry) First kid in ‘00. Started a residential appraisal management company in ‘01. Had another kid in ‘03. Bought a bigger house at the end of ‘04. Voice over career started to really heat up and I became the voice of Cadillac and Subaru and many other household stuff like Quaker Crispy Mini’s, Sherwin Williams Paint and over 300 movies/TV shows/animation and video games.

With all this greatness, government shut down my, and every other independent real estate appraisal management companies in July ’08.

Cry, bitch or moan??? NOPE. Opened a Real Estate Brokerage in Aug ’08, during the biggest/worst real estate crises in US history. Was raising two amazing kids. Living my life with my soulmate and as happy as one can be. Difficult times in real estate from ‘08 to about ‘12. ’13. Things started to get a bit better starting ‘14. Then suddenly, pops passed in ’15. I had kept my promise to my mom and took care of him until he passed.

In ’17, my son won a city championship in high school tennis. An especially proud moment for me because as an athlete growing up, my parents came to a total of ONE of my sporting events in high school. I vowed that when I’d have kids, I would do what I could to show up to their events. When my son made the varsity team as a freshman, I pretty much became the team dad. For his 4 year career, I scheduled ALL my work around his tennis matches. I missed ONE in 4 years.

(Flipped the script 180 degrees)

I then took up the sport so I could drill him the stuff his instructor would teach. Best part…When the team won the city championship, the entire team fought for me to get a ring as well. Unfortunately, the principal said no HOWEVER, just the fact that those kids fought for me was enough of a win.

Status quo until Pandemic in ‘20. Really started to hate the work I was doing in Real Estate. Wanted out of the real estate game but couldn’t. Market recovered a bit in ’21.

And here we are now, in 2024, looking to make a real change. Writing on Medium. 18 stories in 32 days. 302 followers.

Really trying to find my way around here. Did I mention I married way above my league?

Still in Real Estate but formulating an exit strategy.

2 Adult kids now. Son 24 and daughter 21. One graduated CSUN and is currently crushing it at the biggest media company in the country. One is finishing her last semester at CSUN and ready to graduate.

My wife is what has kept me grounded. Kept me stable. I owe her more than I can ever imagine. My wife was a professional Latin rhythm dancer. She loved to dance I had 12 left feet 🕺. I had been fake dancing with her for as long as we’ve known each other. On our 23rd wedding anniversary, I visited my son at work and next door, was a dance studio. I went in, bought a months’ worth of lessons and the rest is history. We have been Ballroom dancing for 4 years. It’s pretty spectacular. Keeps our brains active. Oh and by the way, as a real estate guy, the ROI (Return On Investment) is OFF THE CHARTS amazing,lol!! Our connection is better than it’s ever been, and it’s always been pretty damn good.

My goal is to just write. No niches. Write about life’s experiences. Build content. Work on my new product development company that will have 3–5 of my innovations that I’ve been working on. Start a brand, website, newsletter and begin to market this brand. E-commerce it and procure relationships with affiliate marketers to speak my products into existence.

It’s exciting and scary at the same time.

Thank you for the moment of time in your lives to read my story.

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